ST runs cool 3GHz FD-SOI processors

STMicroelectronics is making application processors on its FD-SOI process running at 3GHz with ‘greater power efficiency at a given operating frequency than alternate technologies,’ says the company.

“As we had anticipated, FD-SOI is proving to be fast, simple and cool; we had fully expected to see 3GHz operating speeds, the design approach is very consistent with what we had been doing in bulk CMOS, and, with the benefits of fully depleted channels and back biasing, the low-power requirements are also meeting our expectations,” says Jean-Marc Chery, CTO & CMO, and EVP & GM of ST’s digital sector.

ST says it has found porting libraries and physical IPs from 28nm bulk CMOS to 28nm FD-SOI to be straightforward, and the process of designing digital SoCs with conventional CAD tools and methods in FD-SOI to be identical to bulk, due to the absence of MOS-history-effect.

Efficiency

‘FD-SOI enables production of highly energy-efficient devices, with the dynamic body-bias allowing instant switch to high-performance mode when needed and return to a very-low-leakage state for the rest of the time – all in a totally transparent fashion for the application software, operating system, and the cache systems,’ says ST.